


Hall of Mirrors

by RustedWireWitch



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Fairground, Funfair, Gen, Lost - Freeform, M/M, Mirrors, Puzzleshipping, hall of mirrors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-01
Updated: 2019-05-01
Packaged: 2020-02-10 14:37:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,602
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18662392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RustedWireWitch/pseuds/RustedWireWitch
Summary: Yugi gets lost at the fairground, someone comes by to help. Gift exchange fic! For Max Crimson.





	Hall of Mirrors

Yugi liked to think that he had a fairly good handle on his sense of direction. He was also firmly of the belief that he was pretty observant, all things considered. What he was not, however, was taller than most people.

That's what had failed him here, he surmised, caught in a maelstrom of wandering figures. To Yugi, his whole world had become a mess of legs striding out in all directions, blocking his view. By the time the sudden crowd had dispersed, his friends were nowhere to be seen.

He turned about, trying to catch glimpse of any of them in his immediate surroundings. Nothing. If Jonouchi or Anzu or Honda were nearby, then they were camoflaged by the streams of passers-by or hidden behind one of a legion of brightly coloured stalls. The fairground was not the best sort of place to get separated, Yugi concluded.

It had seemed like such a fun idea at the time, too, all of them excited at the prospect of sights and sounds of the fair, the borderline safe chaos within its grounds. When they had arrived it had taken all of their collective willpower not to go charging off in four different directions, scattered by the countless delights on offer. Anzu had been captivated by the ferris wheel at the centre of the fairground, neon beams stretching out into the night sky and gently turning. Jonouchi had been drawn towards a side stall with a line of cork rifles and some wooden targets, Honda clearly distracted by the scents of fairground food drifting through the cool air.

Truth be told, Yugi was a little overwhelmed by the options available. Trying out one of the games on offer seemed appealing, casting his eye over the target-shoot stall that had taken Jonouchi's attention. Even at such a cursory glance, the young man could tell that some of the supports holding the targets in place were rusted, stiff, perhaps even purposefully locked in place. He could try his hand at it, he thought, if just to test his luck against such an obviously rigged game.

The food smells were appealing too, he had to admit. All around him things had been sizzling away in pans, frying, boiling, turning about in great mixing machines. Very quickly he began to feel his stomach turn just a little, awash in such a combination of smells. Sickly sweets and spices and fried vegetables and suspicious meat, all smells pooling into the boy's noise and making his head swim. No. Best to leave that until after the big rides at least. It wouldn't do to get ill and then try the bumper cars. Especially not with Jonouchi around.

The ferris wheel, though, that definitely seemed like the winning idea. Calm, quiet, with just the right amount of thrill to start things off. Plus it would give a great view down over the grounds, let the group get their bearings before deciding on where to head next.

Now Yugi was alone. Standing in the middle of a thoroughfare between rows of food and game stalls. He looked up to try and catch a glimpse of the ferris wheel's arms looming out overhead, but everything was so cramped together here that all he could see were striped stretches of colourful canvas and hanging lengths of blinking lights. He started down the sawdusted path, keeping an eye out both for his friends and for any oncoming crowds looking to snatch him up and get him even more lost than he was now.

He turned a corner, another, another. Fairly quickly he had run out of sawdust path and the surrounding stalls had thinned out into nothingness. The twinkling lights overhead blinked faintly, but did little to illuminate the way ahead. Yugi sighed. All that walking and it had proved to be in completely the wrong direction. In the distance, he could see the ferris wheel arms turning slowly amidst some low hanging clouds. It seemed so far away now, just how had he managed to put this much distance between himself and the centre of the fairground?

"Always a lot further away than it seems." A familiar voice said from behind him. Yugi turned on the spot, seeing the rather unlikely sight of the Pharaoh, his dark counterpart, standing behind the counter of a darts stall. The lithe figure was dressed in the same uniform as all the other fairground workers, somewhat at odds with how Yugi normally saw him.

"You're working at the fairground now?" Yugi asked, eyebrow arched as he closed the distance between them.

"In a manner of speaking." The Pharaoh smiled.

"It's good to see you again, Pharaoh."

"And you too, Yugi, though I must say that you're looking a little worse for wear."

Yugi looked down at himself, at the sawdust and mud clinging to his boots. He could feel his hair clinging to his face, slickened by the grease carrying over the breeze from the scores of food wagons and stalls. He definitely felt worse for wear, that much was certain.

"I managed to get myself separated from the others." He admitted.

"I know," the Pharaoh told him, "I'm here to help."

Yugi chuckled, but definitely felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the prospect. "And here I was expecting you were going to challenge me to a game to keep my skills sharp."

"Oh there's still time for that." The Pharaoh looked behind himself at the array of darts targets, inspecting them as if seeing them for the first time. "Though not with these. That wouldn't be fair."

Yugi opened his mouth to pass some sort of comment over his counterpart's relationship with the concept of "fair play" over the years, but he thought better of it.

"Follow me," the Pharaoh told him, stepping out the back of the stall. Yugi quickly picked his way over the mass of cables running between the structures, finding his way behind it to where his partner was striding out towards a large, dark building. As he caught up and fell in with the pace, Yugi caught sight of large neon letters flickering in the side of the nearest wall.

"Hall of mirrors?" He read aloud. A few of the letters had burned out but he got the idea.

"It has a few entrances and exits," the Pharaoh told him, "including one here and one right at the centre of the fairground."

"Seems like it's the sort of place I'm more likely to get lost in."

"Well it was either this or the Tunnel of Love."

Yugi swallowed back another comment, following the other young man inside the building.

It was definitely a lot warmer in here, the air still and insulated from the autumn chill outside. Weak green lights in thin strips overhead gave everything a strange, clinical feel and Yugi found his feet shrouded in darkness. Probably for the best, he reasoned, as his feet audibly stuck to the flooring with every step onwards. Shadows were lengthened and contorted, playing out over the mirrored surfaces that adorned every wall. Yugi had to admit that he was surprised by how clean and gleaming the mirrors appeared. With the general state of the outside of the building, and the disrepair of the lights and flooring, he hadn't been expecting the main attraction to be so well preserved.

"So what brought you back?" Yugi called ahead as the Pharaoh disappeared into the shadows at a junction ahead.

"I told you," came the answer echoing back down the hall. "I'm here to help."

"So is there a threat on its way?" Yugi asked, reaching the junction and looking left just as the other youth disappeared around another corner. "An Egyptian god? A time traveler?"

"You were lost and needed some help."

Yugi arched his brow in confusion.

"That seems a little mundane, doesn't it?"

"Does it?"

"Well, yeah." Yugi picked up the pace, rounding the corner and finding himself in a circular chamber, ringed with mirrors that had been warped into all sorts of strange angles. His reflection was thrown about and morphed in every surface, stretching him out or squashing him down, making his form a mess of wavy lines or changing his appearance into seemingly a perfect sphere. "Wasn't the whole point of our final duel that you wanted to prove I could stand on my own two feet?"

"Well, yes." The Pharaoh seemed to have disappeared from sight, but his voice sounded awkward and stilted. "But even the greatest and most independent of us need help from our friends on occasion."

"When it comes to the minor inconvenience of getting temporarily lost?"

The silence that answered said a great deal. It practically echoed off the mirrored walls.

"It's ok, Pharaoh, I get it." Yugi said. "I missed you too."

He turned to the one reflection in the hall that looked out of place. Well, more out of place than the others. His limbs stretched, his hair spikes more vibrant and expansive, the shadows playing over his face to turn his eyes into predatory slivers. He smiled and reached out to Atem, a moment of confusion overcoming him as his hand brushed against cool glass, making the whole wall reverberate from the touch. Just a reflection after all.

From behind him, the sounds of voices and merriment were unmistakeable, the centre of the fairground just around a corner and behind one more door.

Yugi smiled, keeping his hand pressed to the glass, fingers spread. His reflection did the same, matching his gaze.

"I'm here when you need me." He told him.


End file.
